Text: Xiao Peng's brilliant notes
Editor|Xiao Peng's brilliant notes
[Preface]
The foundation of the Western Han Dynasty was laid, and the ministers undoubtedly recommended Zhang Liang and Chen Ping, both of whom made immortal contributions to the establishment and consolidation of the Western Han Dynasty and played a very important role.
Ban Gu commented on Zhang Liang's merits and said that "the number of ancestors who have escaped hardship and hardship is always good and powerful, how can it be described as extraordinary", while Sima Qian said that Chen Ping "often came up with strange plans, rescued difficulties and troubles, and revitalized the country's troubles".
However, whether it was before or after death, the treatment received by the two turned out to be completely different.
After the defeat of Xiang Yu, Liu Bang, the ancestor of the Han Dynasty, personally praised Zhang Liang's contribution of "strategizing and winning thousands of miles away", and let him choose 30,000 households as the fiefdom.
And Xiao He, who is the prime minister, has only 8,000 feudal estates, and most of the other feudal feudal estates are about 3,000 households.
Judging from the fact that Chen Ping later made great contributions in the Battle of Pingcheng and was renamed the Marquis of Qu Rebellion with 5,000 households, it is unlikely that his food euphores were 3,000 higher when he was originally named the Marquis of Hujing.
Judging from this, Liu Bang, who has always been regarded as a "knowledgeable person" by later generations, did put Zhang Liang in the position of "emperor's teacher", while Chen Ping's ministers were just subordinates and courtiers.
After the death of Zhang Liang and Chen Ping, the evaluation received was even more different, and critics of all dynasties praised Zhang Liang and regarded him as the first emperor and the first strategist of the ages.
However, the evaluation of Chen Ping is more ruined than reputational, not only thinking that his character is problematic, but even his resourcefulness is inferior, and he is only worthy of being called a "wise thief" or "conspirator".
So, what are the factors that caused Liu Bang's attitude towards Zhang Liang to be so different, and is there any relationship between this and the successful experience of Liu Bang Group?
[The reason why Liu Bang looks at Zhang Liang differently]
Liu Bang was the first emperor born as a commoner in Chinese history, and the most trusted people were undoubtedly his old brothers in Pei County, such as Xiao He, Cao Shen, Lu Qi, Fan He, Zhou Bo and others.
Among this group of people, Xiao He, as Liu Bang's old superior, has the highest status.
However, although Xiao He is knowledgeable and strategic, his highest official position is just the head of a county, and he and Liu Bang are native to their hometowns, so they usually do a lot of drinking together.
Therefore, although Liu Bang respects him three points on the face, it is far from reaching the point of respect, and the history books say that Liu Bang was the pavilion chief when he was "the court officials are all kinds of potassium insults", which is the proof.
However, Zhang Liang is different, he is not only noble, his ancestor is "the fifth generation of Xianghan", is an authentic noble descendant, and Zhang Liang once personally led the crowd to snipe Qin Shi Huang, although Bo Langsha's shocking blow hit the deputy car by mistake, but won the reputation of the world.
Based on this alone, Zhang Liang was enough to make all the influential figures on the stage at the end of the Qin Dynasty pay three respects to him.
When Liu Bang first met Zhang Liang, all he had was a peasant army of less than 1,000 people in rags. It is clear that the difference between the two is enormous.
In terms of identity, one is a nobleman, and the other is just a commoner, and his self-styled Pei Gong identity is also unavailable.
In terms of fame, Zhang Liang is famous all over the world, and as soon as Liu Bang comes out of the county, "no one in the world knows the king" in terms of strength, and the little people under Liu Bang don't have much capital to show off in front of Zhang Liang's entourage.
Naturally, Liu Bang thought that Zhang Liang was a broken knot at the beginning, until later they defected to Xiang Liang's Chu army, and Liu Bang, who was almost ignored by Xiang's uncle and nephew, witnessed Zhang Liang talking with these big people, and this scene also aggravated Zhang Liang's status in Liu Bang's heart.
By the time Chen Ping came to take refuge, Liu Bang had already changed from what it used to be, not only was he the king of Han, not only had a large number of ministers and warriors under him, but also there was an endless stream of all kinds of talents who came to join him every day, and there were more than ten people who came on the same day as Chen Ping.
Although Chen Ping stood out in one fell swoop with his outstanding conversation and won Liu Bang's appreciation, Liu Bang valued him more at this time, and it was impossible to restore Zhang Liang's treatment at the beginning.
The second reason why Liu Bang glanced at Zhang Lianggao is likely to be related to the origin of Zhang Liang's knowledge.
Judging from Zhang Liangbo's feat of stabbing Qin, although his courage is commendable, it is not very worthy of compliment from the perspective of strategy, because this move not only has a very low probability of success, but also is likely to put himself in a Jedi, according to which it is judged that Zhang Liang's full strategy should not come from family learning.
According to Zhang Liang himself, his knowledge came from the "Taigong Art of War" granted by a strange old man, but except for Zhang Liang, no one in the world was fortunate enough to see the true face of this old Lushan, so that even Sima Qian and Ban Gu failed to understand Zhang Liang's master's inheritance.
It is worth pointing out that for Liu Bang, who is interested in competing for the world, the mystery of Zhang Liang's source of knowledge is also of great help.
The people of Liu Bang's era were undoubtedly superstitious, and it was almost a fool's dream for a commoner to want to compete for the world.
Therefore, in order to show that they are destined to be different and gain more followers, many people think of using ghost legends.
Just like Chen Sheng, who did not believe that "princes and princes will have a kind of each other", at the beginning of the uprising, Russia painstakingly brewed "heaven's will" such as the fish-belly collection of books and the night language of the fox fairy, and Liu Bang also had various ghost and god legends on the way to the Son of Heaven.
As a result, stories such as Liu Bang's mother giving birth to a child with Chilongye and killing a snake after drinking have been interpreted into the myth of the Red Emperor beheading the White Emperor.
The benefits brought by these legends are really "Peizhong's children or those who want to be attached to them", so the story of Zhang Liang being written as a "king's teacher" doesn't just show that Liu Bang is the king?
【First come, first served】
At the beginning of Liu Bang's army, the most intelligent person around him was Xiao He, and most of the others were martial artists, and Xiao He was in charge of logistics most of the time, not by Liu Bang's side, and it was easy to conquer Liu Bang's people with Zhang Liang's talent.
By the time Chen Ping joined, Zhang Liang's position was as solid as a rock, and he had won the trust and support of Liu Bang himself and his important generals.
When Liu Bang decided on major matters, the first thing he thought of was to listen to Zhang Liang's opinions, and Zhang Liang, who had an extraordinary status, was indeed more qualified to speak on some matters than others.
For example, in the case of Dingdu, the reason stated by Lou Jing, who first proposed Dingdu Guanzhong, was actually roughly the same as what Zhang Liang listed later, and Liu Bang was obviously moved.
It was only considering that Lou Jingren was soft-spoken and could not suppress many ministers who held opposing views, so he specially consulted Zhang Liang's opinion.
And almost the same words came out of Zhang Liang's mouth, and the results were really different, and they achieved a decisive effect.
[Later generations' evaluation of the difference between the two]
Later critics had completely different attitudes towards the two, on the one hand, they had a tendency to exalt Zhang Liang infinitely, and on the other hand, they wantonly belittled Chen Ping, so Zhang Liang became Mr. Perfect.
Chen Ping, on the other hand, was not only inferior in wisdom and mediocre, but even stolen a lot of credit from others, and was a "thief of wisdom", and even his political character and personal morality were violently attacked.
There are many factors that contribute to this phenomenon, and here are only a few statements that apply at the same time.
First of all, let's look at the criticism of Chen Ping's wisdom in later generations, the source of the "conspirator" statement may come from a sentence said by Chen Ping himself: "I have a lot of conspiracies, and Taoism forbids it." My life is wasted, and it is gone, and it will not be able to come back in the end, so that I will have many calamities. ”
According to the author's superficial understanding of strategy, there seems to be a conspiracy and a conspiracy, and the difference between the two is mainly reflected in the different means.
Conspiracy refers to the use of fraud, deception and other means, and its surface actions and true intentions are not uniform, such as Huang Gai's deception in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
The conspiracy is to make all actions and plans visible to the opponent, to be known, and to have to do what you say.
Once the conspiracy is discovered by the opponent, it cannot be continued, while the conspiracy is the purpose that the opponent knows but still cannot destroy.
For example, Cao Cao falsely intimidated Eastern Wu before the Red Cliff War, claiming that he had a million troops, which greatly put pressure on the morale of the people of Eastern Wu.
Judging from the relevant historical facts, almost no designer of the strategy would think that there is any difference between conspiracy and conspiracy, and the specific use of them is completely adjusted according to different objective situations.
Zhang Liang's first great contribution to Liu Bang's group occurred on the way west to Xianyang, when Liu Bang's troops encountered a strong force of the Qin army at Wuguan.
Liu Bang wanted to force the attack with 20,000 horses under his command, but Zhang Liang thought that the strong attack might not have an absolute chance of victory, so he offered a plan to buy off the Qin army defenders, and after the Qin army guards were bought, Zhang Liang pointed out that although the Qin army was shaken, the soldiers may not be completely willing to surrender, and persuaded Liu Bang to take advantage of the favorable opportunity for the opponent to relax the defense to wave the army to attack, and finally won a complete victory in this battle.
It should be said that Zhang Liang's strategy was quite successful, but from the perspective of strategy, it was a complete "conspiracy".
There are also commentators who criticize Chen Ping's scheme for harming the interests of innocent people, such as Chen Ping's teaching of Liu Bang to capture Han Xin under the pseudo-You Yunmeng, and he is "a person who steals Huai Yinhou's merits", which is incomprehensible.
Because regardless of whether the evidence of Han Xin's rebellion is conclusive, since Liu Bang is determined to deal with it, Chen Ping, as a strategist, can only put forward the most economical and cost-effective plan based on this position.
If it is said that this move wronged and wronged Han Xin, then the blame can only be attributed to Liu Bang, because based on the same reason, Zhang Liang later made a plan for Empress Lu to keep the status of the crown prince Liu Ying.
This move also endangered the interests of Liu Ruyi, the king of Zhao, and Liu Bang's funeral concubine, Mrs. Qi, why did no one accuse Zhang Liang of being responsible for the final tragic death of the two?
[Similarities and differences between Zhang Liang and Chen Ping's strategies]
If each of them cites events favorable to one party to substantiate it, and the result is naturally that the public is justified and the mother-in-law says that the mother-in-law is reasonable, which is unconvincing, then the best way is to examine the opinions of the two on the same matter.
Judging from historical records, Zhang Liang and Chen Ping only offered advice to Liu Bang on the same event twice, once when Han Xin asked to establish himself as the false king of Qi.
At that time, Liu Bang, who received the report from Han Xin's envoy, was furious, and scolded Han Xin in front of the envoy, and Zhang Liang and Chen Ping, who were eating at the same table with Liu Bang, invariably hinted at the same thing.
Due to the vague record, we can't clearly judge who said it in Liu Bang's ear, but at the moment when the two kicked Liu Bang, they both analyzed the pros and cons of it, but it is not difficult to imagine.
Another time happened after the chasm signed a contract to divide the world equally, Liu Bang, who had gained half of the country, was quite satisfied and was ready to withdraw his troops and stop the war.
Zhang Liang and Chen Ping saw the strategic opportunity to eliminate the advantages of the other at the same time, and actively persuaded Liu Bang to take the opportunity to attack, and finally eliminated the arrogant Xiang Yu in one fell swoop, completing the great cause of unifying the world.
If you only judge from these two things, I believe it is difficult to distinguish the difference between the two in terms of strategy, after all, as a strategist, being able to see these can be said to be "basic skills".
Judging from Liu Bang's life experience, there are two times that can really be called life and death and the most dangerous, namely the Siege of Rongyang and the Siege of Baideng.
During the confrontation between Liu Bang and Xiang Yu Rongyang, Zhang Liang planned strategically and suggested that Liu Bang should win over Han Xin, Yingbu, and Peng Yue.
The ownership of these three people does determine the final outcome of the Chu-Han dispute, so it is not too much to praise Zhang Liang's strategy.
And Chen Ping was also unambiguous, and the counter-strategy he proposed greatly weakened the strength of the Chu army from the perspective of tactical strikes.
The suspicion and suspicion within the Chu army directly led to the withering of a large number of outstanding generals, and Fan Zeng's separation was even worse, and no one in the Chu army was able to offer a strategy worth mentioning after that.
In the design of the breakout battle on the eve of the destruction of Rongyang City, we did not see Zhang Liang's remarks, but Chen Ping successively threw out the clever plan of using the general Ji Xin as a stand-in and 2,000 women from the east gate to confuse the sight of the Chu army from the east gate, so as to cover Liu Bang's smooth escape from the west gate.
In the siege of Baideng, Liu Bang's army was besieged by the Xiongnu and "could not eat for seven days", and it had reached the critical point of life and death.
Zhang Liang, who had been "a strange plan", did not perform at this time for some reason, and finally relied on Chen Ping to persuade the wife of the Xiongnu Shan Yu to get out of the predicament with "strange tricks".
However, because there is no record, some people speculate that the prop of Chen Ping's plan is just a portrait of a beautiful woman, so they feel that Chen Ping's plan is too clumsy and "despicable", which leads to a bad record by historians.
In fact, the fundamental purpose of the strategy is to achieve the designer's desired intention, and if the portrait of a beautiful woman can really achieve the goal, it can be regarded as both economical and environmentally friendly.